The way forward for S-REITs

Eng-Kwok Seat Moey, managing director and head of DBS Bank’s capital markets business, has a wish list for S-REITs on the 20th anniversary of the IPO of the very first REIT in Singapore, CapitaLand Mall Trust (CMT). Eng-Kwok, who is also called “the mother of S-REITs” because of her pivotal role in the creation of the shopping centre REIT, hopes that more S-REITs to make it to Asia’s top 10 REITs by market capitalisation (see chart 1). She also hopes for an S-REIT to make it into the global top 10.

“At this point, if you compare us, on [the basis] of average market cap to the US and Hong Kong, we are very small,” she adds. “One item on our wish list is for one of our REITs to become top 10 in the world. It’s possible.”

For her, the largest S-REIT, CapitaLand Integrated Commercial Trust (CICT), is not Asia’s largest REIT “because Link REIT is there”. In terms of market capitalisation, Link REIT is 75% larger than CICT. As shown in chart 1, the Japanese REITs (J-REITs) figure significantly in Asia’s top 10.

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